Array Sorting

[treeleaf20]

Hey,
If I have an array that has maybe 50 things in it, I want to select a random sample of say 5 things. So I know I can use sort() but I want the results to be completely random and not just the top 5 or something in the middle. Can anyone help me do that?

Thanks in advance.

[m_tt]

Surely this is not the best method but it may give you an idea 🙂

$items = array 
	(
	'item1',
	'item2',
	'item3',
	'item4',
	'item5',
	'item6',
	'item7',
	'item8',
	'item9',
	'item10',
	'item11'
	);

$rand_items = array();

while(count($rand_items) <= 5)	{
	$item = $items[ rand(0,10) ];
	if (!in_array($item,$rand_items))	{
		$rand_items[] = $items[ rand(0,10) ];
	}
}

print_r($rand_items);

[TheDefender]

or you could just use [man]array_rand[/man], which also gives you an optional parameter to set to tell how many to pick out.

OR

You could use [man]shuffle[/man] to shuffle your array up like a deck of cards, and then just use a loop to pull out the specific number of entries you want...

Either way, I think it'd be a little easier and more efficient than m@tt's solution (No offense m@tt)